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At Mr Kotecki's court hearing, prosecutor Julyan Stephens said that both teenagers were "quite intoxicated" and decided to play pool but the landlord was adamant in stopping them at 3.20am.

Defending solicitor Jeffrey Bannister said that after an altercation between Mr Kotecki and the teenagers, "some of his regular customers" became involved and threw the victims out of the door, and then "things then got out of hand".

He said: "Kotecki could see these two lads were standing by the pool table and realised they may have been thinking about playing pool.

“He told them they couldn’t because they were closing, and after telling them again he got the rack of cues to take them elsewhere and then saw one of them down by side of the table by the coin slot.

“He was concerned the pool cues could have been used as weapons and reached out with his foot intending to just push the person away from the table.

“However, he misjudged the distance and pushed him harder than he would have intended to.